VPS & Dedicated Servers (Hosting Control Center) Help

What is VPS hosting?

Watch this video to learn what VPS hosting is and how it compares to other types of hosting.

Video transcript

GoDaddy offers several types of website hosting. This video offers an explanation of VPS hosting and some tips for determining if it’s the right solution for you.

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. To make VPS hosting a little easier to understand, let’s take a quick look at two other kinds of hosting and compare them to VPS hosting.

On one hand, there’s shared hosting. Your website files are housed on a server along with the files of other websites, and the server’s bandwidth and resources are shared among all the websites on that server. You have very little control over the server settings or operations. Think of it like renting a unit in an apartment complex where you share parking space, storage, and laundry facilities with others in the complex. Shared hosting is an affordable solution that is generally well suited to most small- and many medium-sized businesses that have simple, straightforward websites with daily traffic under 2,000 visitors.

On the other hand, there’s dedicated hosting, in which you lease the amount of exclusive server space you think you’ll need and you have full use of the server bandwidth and resources. There’s no sharing with other websites. You can control and customize the software and computing operations as needed; even though you don’t have access to the server hardware. It’s similar to living in a large single-family home. Dedicated hosting is often the right solution for large, complex, high-traffic sites and applications.

Now consider VPS hosting. You have your own space on a physical server that is partitioned into multiple private environments. The technical term for this is “virtualization.” So while others may reside on the same physical server as you, your space is yours alone and you don’t share resources and bandwidth like you do with shared hosting. Like dedicated hosting, VPS hosting allows a high degree of control and customization. You can change server settings, install software, add users, and even turn the server on and off as needed. One way to visualize VPS hosting is to think about living in a condominium building. A single building is divided into multiple private units of various sizes. Each unit has a private laundry room and storage area, and a reserved parking space – resources that do not have to be shared with other condo residents – and you can control and customize your living space as needed.

In general, VPS hosting is more affordable than dedicated hosting. It’s a good solution when you want your own server space and resources, and the control of dedicated hosting – but you don’t need the amount of space and power that dedicated hosting provides.